Beatae Memoriae
by Nyanoka
Summary: Lucina remembers, and not all is well. Originally written in early 2017. Crosspost from AO3.


When Lucina awakens, her heart _aches and beats_ for a world that no longer exists. For people, _strangers_ really, that no longer lived.

_Were they strangers?_ Her mind whispers treacherously.

They had always been faint glimmers, blurry faces and voices lost upon awakening, a bittersweet pain that could not be satisfied. But this time, they had been _clear_, shining and vibrant and bursting with life.

The dreams, when she could spare to sleep, always came without fail. From her earliest memories, they accompanied her, like a far-off friend, sweet but distant. Her dreams, whatever bits and pieces she remembered, had always been a personal matter, one that she kept away from her comrades.

Part of it came from a worry of rejection, of doubt. It would be unbearable if her friends questioned her sanity, thought her a loon lost in old stories of a time before war.

They were a comfort, strange and nostalgic as they were; one that distinctly belonged only to _her_. It was a respite from Grima, from her cold reality.

This time, she dreams of a woman with kind but mischievous eyes. Her laughter, infectious and bright, rang clearly as they rode upon her Pegasus, the land beneath them a blur of prosperity and peace. Her chest swelled with warmth, with wistfulness, at the recollection. They flown, with her arms wrapped around the woman's slim, muscular waist, until they reached a grassy field.

Landing firmly and disembarking, the woman finally spoke.

"Do you remember this place? We first met here."

Her voice was gentle, loving, yet also a sharp knife. Guilt spread then for she could not nor could she now.

The woman knelt then and plucked a small blue flower from the ground. Standing up and twirling it lightly, the woman handed the delicate bloom to her. Despite its size, the five petals of the blossom felt heavy between Lucina's fingers.

"Don't worry. I understand if you don't," while her words rang with reassurance, her eyes held a sense of sorrow to them.

"You picked a bouquet of these for me once, right from this field," she continued, "It was a wonderful gesture."

Lucina had wanted to ask her then, but the words would not come, whether due to the dream state or the tightening in her chest.

"I.. I'm sorry I can't be with you now, that I can't protect you anymore," the words echoed loudly across the clearing despite the quietness of her voice," But please always remember that…"

Her voice had been filled with grief.

"I love you, Marth."

Lucina had woken up then, emotions rattled and wetness on her cheeks, and with a name.

Caeda.

* * *

"I knew you once, didn't I?" she says.

"You did," the Manekete woman answers with a soft smile, sadness apparent in her green eyes, "You were my first friend, the one closest to my heart."

Lucina is quiet at first, lost in her own thoughts. Lately, her thoughts had become jumbled, darker and doubtful. Her dreams had become clearer, terrifyingly so, since her arrival in the past. Though clearer, they left more questions than answers. Puzzles pieces, jagged and lost.

She remains silent for a few moments more before she speaks, determined and serious.

"Please... I want to remember."

Tiki smiles, fuller, truer than before and replies,

"Very well, Mar-Mar."

* * *

When they kiss, there's a strange familiarity in it, an understanding and urgency.

Coming back to the past, Lucina had not expected to fall in love, especially not with the man, _the traitor_, who murdered her father.

But he had been kind, more so than she expected, funny, and helpful even. She had been drawn to him, desperately so.

But really, there was more to it. Lucina was neither a romantic nor was she naive; she could not afford to be in war.

There were bonds, invisible and deep, that tied them. It was a kinship of sorts, one that did not come from their shared acquaintance and connection with Chrom.

It was one made of memories, of ones forged in battles long past and times long gone; it was of a connection, devote and all-consuming.

When she stays with him, memories, passionate and yearning, stirred yet never quite woke.

He reminds Lucina of her dreams, though she could not quite identify why.

With him, there was a name she could not remember and it bothers her greatly. It burns deeply on her tongue, on her mind, and would not cease.

Lucina fancies that he understood too in some sense. Often, he, pensive and lost, would glance at her when he thought she wasn't looking. He didn't quite understand it either.

There was a comfort, no matter how selfish or vindictive, in understanding, in solidarity.

When they part for air, it clicks for her, just for an instant. She notices how his golden eyes widen, comprehension dawning as well.

The emotions, relieved yet mournful, surged within her.

What did fate have against them? To place them in roles such as this?

The words rush out just as her partner parts his mouth to speak.

"I remember you," her voice wavers, "Chris."

* * *

It was a shock.

To see herself as she once was.

_No_, she corrects herself, _not anymore, not truly._

She ends up clashing with him, the Einherjar. Her movements blurred, changing from the ones her father taught her so long ago to one that was innately his_, hers really_.

They moved as if in a dance, perfect mirrors of each other, neither yielding nor tiring. Around them, the sounds of war resonated, a familiar song.

In the end, she prevails, the shattered original over the flawless copy, and continues living.

* * *

There was a strangeness, uncomfortable and sharp, in cutting down her old allies. While copies, figments, they resembled her friends from their appearance to their core.

It particularly hurts when she sees her mother cut down Caeda. A sadness wells in her chest, but she perseveres. Robin stays close at her side, his magic and swordsmanship impeccable as it has always been.

Lucina moves and he knows how to perfectly support her and she in return. Every weakness, every movement, every breath.

It was a dance that they had done many times before in their last life.

But, there was a perversity in their formation, a corruption that could not be ignored.

They did not move to protect their old allies. What had been a sign of hope, of motivation on the battlefield, had become a herald of violence, of death.

There is an irony in it.

* * *

Lucina's fingers burn as she traces the Fell Brand on his hand, almost as if to somehow erase it. Her own mark, a reminder of her duty, scorches her deeply.

His other hand encircles her body protectively as they sit together in silence.

They cling to each other like lifelines. They were in a sense. They, the once prince and his retainer, were remnants of an era long past and not many could share the same bond, the same cursed understanding they held.

Her father has noticed and she notes his disapproval, but Lucina does not care. He does not know of who she once was or of his tactician's true past, not one of Plegia but of _Altea_.

It is not because she distrusts him, but some things were meant to be kept rather than told.

They move closer together, her body against his chest and his cheek pressed against her shoulder. In this moment, their actions spoke more than words could.

She fears losing Robin, _Chris_, again. She fears losing him to Grima, to death. But more than anything, she knows of his sacrificial nature.

Robin has always been someone who put her, _Marth_, first no matter the cost.

And that made her more fearful than anything.

* * *

Severa has never understood Lucina.

Of course, she knows of the other woman's preferences, of her poor taste in fashion, of her quirks. Like the other children, they knew everything about each other.

But, she did not _know_ her.

There were moments of guardedness, an almost antique weariness, in the other woman's eyes. It was alien and unnerving, akin to the feeling of drowning.

In those moments, she seemed less like Lucina and more like Grima, primordial and cold. In those moments, she, Falchion's heir, felt more like a bizarre beast rather than a trusted companion.

Severa never voices her concerns, but she notices how Lucina sometimes looks at her, contemplative and calculating and _foreign_.

It strikes her soul harder than any weapon ever could.

* * *

Inigo notices how they look at each other.

In the Shepherds, it was an unstated yet well-known truth, that of the nature of the princess's relationship with her father's tactician.

It was like something out of a perverse fairy tale; the princess who fell in love with the dragon.

Inigo couldn't judge really. They all took their own comforts in different things, no matter how destructive or irrational, and was it not their mission to change the past? He trusts her to make the right decision when the time came.

Lucina always put her duties above all else.

* * *

Sometimes, Robin dreams, not of tactics or of nightmares, but of a girl with shy eyes and violet hair.

Surrounded by books, they often sit together, in silence, her perusing a tome and he sharpening a blade. It was a content sort of melancholy.

Occasionally, they would be joined by others. Sometimes it would be a foul-mouthed knight, other times it was a pair of arguing cavaliers, the list went on.

Those instances often left him with a feeling of lost, yearning. He misses them, but he is unsure why.

For he has never met them in his life.

Their garbs did not bear the telltale signs of Plegia, of Valm, or even of Ylisse. They were, for lack of a better word, complete strangers, to him and to time.

After he meets the masked man, Marth he calls himself, the girl finally speaks, breaking their silence like a key turning in a lock, unwanted and revealing.

"I loved you once, did you know?" Her voice is neither bitter nor forlorn. Rather, the tone was of fondness, of acceptance. For Robin, it was an unpleasant contrast.

He could not reply; his mouth would not open. He simply listens, for the dream would not let him do anything else.

"I had always hoped you would return them," she continues, now with a hint of wistfulness," but you never did."

Even if he could, Robin did not know how to respond. His hands merely clench at the fabric of his cloak.

"I wasn't the only one either. Norne loved you as well." Her words struck him like an arrow, sharp and piercing. Robin did not understand why these words, the words of a figment, hurt him so.

They were just creations of his mind right? A product of many sleepless nights bent over tactical tomes and strategies.

The girl folds her hands over her lap, "You inspired me, showed me compassion when no one else would. That was what drew me to you."

"But, you never saw me as a lover, only as a sister."

He switches to staring at her book, now discarded by her side. Her eyes were agonizing to look at.

"I do not blame you. It would be selfish of me. After all, you loved him above all else, didn't you?"

The words struck a chord within him, stirred a memory long buried.

She smiles, long and sad. "You felt the same pain that I did. Yet… you were unable to move on. You continued to remain by his side, a shadow."

There was an irony in her words.

"Even now… you feel it don't you?" Pity clouds her voice. "An emptiness in your heart."

After a few moments of tense silence, she stands and tugs at his hand, pulling him up and towards the library's exit.

When she opens the door, he awakens, tears staining his face and the documents he slept on.

He is alone now.

* * *

When they find Morgan, lost in the temple, Chrom is furious, furious at his daughter but especially at his tactician, his best friend.

After they return to camp and situate Morgan, they argue then, enclosed in a tent far away from the child.

It is their first serious argument, loud and vitriolic and lacking in their usual calmness. They fight over the morals, the ethnics of it. Robin argues with a particular desperation, born thousands of years before, of a love finally requited. Chrom contends with the viciousness of parent, eager to protect his child from a presumed mistake.

It continues on, the other Shepherds unwilling to interfere in such a personal matter.

It only ends when the tent's flaps billow open, Lucina appearing. Her eyes held the same iciness Robin had come to known in privacy centuries before.

Marth, while kind and full of an unparalleled light, had held a certain darkness to him. It was one that refused to be controlled, to be ordered, to be spoken for. Marth had always disliked it when people spoke for him, and Lucina was no different.

Lucina ends the dispute then and there, with the same poise and finality that he once had. She leaves no room for her father to argue.

Later in privacy, Robin defers to her and apologizes, just as he always did in their last life. Only then, do her eyes soften as they have always had for him.

She dislikes how demure he is in her presence, but she has never been able to wholly undo what his grandfather had done.

Lucina accepts that she might never heal the scars caused in her name, but she loves him all the same.

She draws him close again, and they fall asleep together, a sign of affection and lost.

* * *

When they make love, it is not their names, reluctant and foreign, that they call.

The names are different, older and only one held any significance.

She regrets letting him become her shadow, forgotten and lost to history. And, he merely reassures her in return.

I do not mind, he says, I do not want glory.

Lucina still regrets, for what does it mean for the Hero-King when his achievements aren't his?

* * *

Chrom feels disoriented, out of the loop. Now more than ever, Robin and Lucina seemed more like phantasms, rather than his best friend and future daughter. They moved like spirits, lost in what seemed to be memories and forgotten words.

An atmosphere of secrecy surrounded both his daughter and his tactician, a ghostly and burdensome air. It was an air of death, of knowledge, of what he did not know.

Chrom feels hurt. Did they not trust him? He knows that others in the army feel the same. Sometimes, he hears the children whisper about how Lucina was different now, more withdrawn and tired and unfamiliar.

Once, he catches a faint murmur of conversation as he passes their room.

He does not know any of the names spoken.

_It's over._

After the final battle, Lucina cries, hard and long.

The other children assume it is because of Robin's death or a relief caused by success or a combination of both. Some wounds ran harsher than others and not all of them trusted her retainer. They had lost too many to Grima for Robin to ever be truly forgiven.

While true to an extent, her tears ran deeper than that.

Even in her other life, he had always been the one to protect her, his body bearing the brunt of every assault. She remembers the scars that lined his back, his arms, his hands. They crisscrossed his entire form, a pale spider web of love and loyalty and willing agony.

All taken freely in her name, in _Marth_'s name.

Lucina always remembers the shudder that new knights made whenever they saw him without his armor, the horror and disgust and the whispered words.

She recalls Elice and Caeda and Merric and everyone else and she grieves.

She remembers her old name, her title and father, her loved ones, all dead now, and she weeps.

She cries because she has never been the one to protect him, not truly.

It had always been him, _Chris_.

* * *

It was ironic that Robin had dealt the final blow. Before, when he faced Medeus with her, it had been her blow. Her Falchion, shining and devastating, that struck through the dragon's hide.

Alongside her, he, perched upon his wyvern, had moved, lance drawn and Iote's Shield glinting from its place on the wyvern's saddle.

It had been her burden then and now, it was his forevermore.

When Chrom finds Robin in the field again, Lucina feels her heart leap, a happy yet anxious gesture. She follows her father despite his best protests.

When Lucina meets him once more, they embrace and his breath warms her neck. She can feel herself smile, relieved and solemn, against his chest.

They do not care about who surrounds them.

When they speak again, the names they call out are not the one bestowed unwillingly upon them.

He calls her Marth and she returns the favor.

They disappear together soon after, like smoke in the clouds.

The Ylisse treasury is raided the same night. The only item taken is an old heirloom, a circlet whose owner has long since been forgotten.

Too late, Chrom discovers their departure through a note, folded neatly and placed on his throne.

The script is elaborate, strangely familiar as if taken from another era. It was distinctly different from Lucina's plain, curt writing, but he inherently knows it is hers.

He opens it in the presence of the other Shepherds and reads. As Chrom continues, he feels a sense of confusion, yet also sorrow.

His voice lowers on the last sentence as pandemonium breaks out in the room,

_We don't belong here, not anymore._

* * *

Tiki understands when Chrom visits her in search of Lucina and Robin, but she does not explain. The daughter of Naga only smiles sadly and says,

"Some bonds transcend time just as some memories weigh more than any crown."

Chrom does not understand, but Tiki expects it.

After all, Robin has never been his, not really.

* * *

**AN**: Originally written in early 2017. Crosspost from AO3.


End file.
